At present, the collection of sea water for ends such as desalination, refrigeration processes, recreational and sports uses, etc., can be done by a variety of methods, of which the following stand out:
Collection by open sampling: directly from sea water, which is done by a submerged contact that enters the water to a predetermined distance, which depends on the physical characteristics of the marine environment and the sounding of the bottom. The submerged end of the conduct tube is equipped with an open head to allow direct entry of seawater by pumping from pumps installed on dry land.
Collections by means of vertical wells: wells of varying depth, that are drilled on dry land, penetrating underneath the surface of the freshwater-saltwater that exists in the profile of the coastline. The seawater penetrates through the pores in the granular rocky mass of the seabed to the land until reaching a hydrostatic equilibrium with the flow of freshwater from land that flows into the sea. The vertical wells for pumping seawater have to pass through this equilibrium surface to reach the saltwater for installation of the corresponding filter tube at the bottom, in which the pump will be placed that will pump these salt waters. In this case, the terrain acts as a natural filter, providing waters of excellent physical and chemical properties, at almost constant temperature throughout the year without being influenced by outside climatic conditions.
Both processes have their drawbacks. In the first case, the drawback is due to the direct collection of water, with the existence of elements in suspension and variations in temperature of the water. In the second case, depending on whether the extent of permeability of the substratum, pumps are needed with large dynamic decreases in the phreatic level, which will give rise to very deep pumping cones that could influence the flow of freshwater in the upper part of the aquifer used. This leads to a variation in the chemical composition of the pumped water, as well as substantially affecting the freshwater of the aquifer often used by others, provoking or accelerating the process of intrusion by the sea into the fresh water of the land. Also, in this case, the existence of deep pumping cones may give rise to water flows with a large gradient that could sweep fine material in the aquifer towards the pumping wells, increasing the turbidity and presence of swept solids in the pumped water, which would negatively affect the subsequent processes of filtration and treatment, making the general collection process more expensive.
In addition, in the event that large collection flows are required, batteries of well-spaced wells would be needed to avoid problems of dynamic pumping, and so a large surface would be needed, occupied by these batteries of wells, something which is inconvenient in tourist areas of the coast and where space is not readily available.
As a background of the invention, the German patent DE313221 is recognized, which discloses a procedure for placing subterranean tubes for different liquids, including drains, as well as equipment for the work.
In this patient, the method of horizontal directional drilling (HDD) is used to dig subterranean galleries, and the drain is introduced, protected with a sleeve that is withdrawn once installation is complete.
The problem of the procedure of this patent is, firstly, that the protective sleeve of the drain increases the material costs and manpower, as well as slowing down the speed with which the work is done.
In addition, the extra size needed for the protective sleeve increases the economic cost of the project.
Another problems lies in the fact that the drain installed according to this procedure may affect different phreatic levels that may have different contaminants, and even cause healthy strata to be affected by other contaminated ones; therefore, the collection of waters is not appropriate for recreational uses or desalination, in addition to the aforementioned negative effect of contamination of the healthy strata.
In addition, the system used does not consider any system for elimination of detritus from the sealing of the well, decreasing the performance of the drain.
Finally, in this patent, widening work was done through the introduction of a reamer from the opposite end to that starting point of the well. This suggests that the sludge from drilling will logically escape through the widened side, which when drilling towards the sea will be towards this side, and so the mud fluid will not be recovered and will pollute the sea.